


GUO NIAN ( THUS WE SURVIVE THE WINTER'S BITE ) 年兽

by Cerulean_Spork



Category: Chinese Mythology, Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Gen, References to War and Colonial History
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 20:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1009979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerulean_Spork/pseuds/Cerulean_Spork
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bringing all the Shatterdomes under one roof is an exercise in patience, diplomacy -- and in the end, more than a little magic (and some screaming, too)</p><p>(Part 1 covering the preparations, is posted -- part 2 to follow soon, i hope!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	GUO NIAN ( THUS WE SURVIVE THE WINTER'S BITE ) 年兽

From the sea, or from the sky, or from the piers and wharves all around them, the great Jaeger base at the water's edge in Hong Kong looked to be a place of tranquil efficiency, humming with life like a beehive as helicopters and transports of all sizes came and went, and at intervals one or more of the surviving Jaegers went out on maneuvers, practicing in the waves for real battle -- or was carried off for actual battle, on steel wings, to return in triumph later, one always hoped and prayed!

Inside, it was a different story.

Oh, things **got done** , but they didn't get done **smoothly**. As each Shatterdome had been closed, abandoned in favor of high walls and isolated defenses, its remaining crews, all who could afford to stay with the PPDC's uncertain future, or bear the stresses of relocation, had brought all their most useable equipment and material with them, and rehomed everything into SD-HK. 

On paper, it all looked workable.

On paper, it didn't **look** like there would be any problems, or any reasons for them.

On paper, and in spreadsheets, and electronic memos, and presentations, it had all sounded so simple, **comparatively speaking**. There was far too much room, these days, and so the diminished Shatterdomes should be able to fit under the one large roof of Hong Kong's dome, no problem.

And up to now, it **had** gone smoothly enough, so that they'd all been lulled into a false sense of confidence. Anchorage's sad remnant? Had mostly been happy to come in out of the cold, thrilled to death to be in a place where autumn **didn't** mean **_Oh my god, Winter Is Coming, we won't see the sun for another season!_** and where good hot food was cheap and plentiful, and ice unheard of. There weren't that many of them, and for that and other reasons, like the proximity to the Academy, many of them were already known to staff here, at least over the coms. They learned quickly and tried hard and were quiet and grateful and hardly noticeable at all...

Los Angeles had a harder edge, was more betrayed and angry and looking for somewhere to put it -- but where they **put it** was into fixing the Jaegers, anxious to prove that they were **worth** something after all, that they'd been dismissed by their own unjustly, and so their competetive edge was like flint to Hong Kong's steel, they worked with the stinging energy of wasps, and they found the climate and the customs similar enough that some of them admitted to experiencing deja vu attacks. Palm trees, and skyscrapers! So what if the sunrise and sunset were on the wrong hands? they could live with that -- and did.

Like the Californians, the Panama Canal Shatterdome crews came from a place with a large, long-established Chinese community, and for all that cultures had diverged with time and distance, there was that base of understanding, of enough background shared and reshared over the generations even apart from the Corps to bring them together, that with the links of their local shared and overlapping heritage with the SD-LA crews, any gaps were bridged and everything felt like the Shatterdome was coming back to life, a miniature Hong Kong right inside the big one -- except for the lack of Jaegers.

And just so, and even more so, when Lima came on board, bringing even more far-flung traditions back to their ancient home, and the songs they shared up their eastern coast, it really did seem like the more the merrier, and whatever small frictions there were, stayed small and were easily gotten around -- and those who paid **attention** to such things realized the cleverness of their Marshal in the order of this operation, because **now** when Tokyo came into their gates, it was as but one more guest among many, there was no fierce significance to it, any more than to a crowd of travelers arriving at the door of a hotel in a storm -- and **now** there were so many Corps members of Japanese family here **already** to welcome them, that the house was **not** divided. 

We've already been mixing for so many years, through coms and transfers and the Academy, we've worked side by side, how much harder can living side by side be, while we ready ourselves for this last great push of the Marshal's!

And then everything went **horribly wrong** , when Vladivostok showed up, and nobody really knew why. It wasn't that they were white, or European, or even Russian, because there had been Russians serving at all the other Shatterdomes, just as there were Chinese and Japanese and Malaysian and Korean and Pinoy and people whose countries didn't even border the Pacific, but had come to give their lives and energies all the same. 

Part of the problem -- and it was hard to believe in this day and age, but it was inescapably true -- was that the Americans suddenly **balked** and had a hard time dealing with lots of people speaking Russian all around them, wearing obviously Russian uniforms, with Russian symbols all over them -- some Cold War, some older, but it didn't matter, Russian was Russian, to the kinds of people who got upset at that sort of thing.

Not **all** the Americans, of course -- hell, some of the Americans from SD-LA and SD-AK **were** Russian themselves, by descent and heritage, and didn't that make the friction hotter, since they argued with their own 'Dome-mates about their issues **AND** with the Vladivostok crews about how they were or weren't being the right **sort** of Russians themselves. And of course the NASA remnant were even **more** upset about it all, having worked with their counterparts on the space station so intimately for so long, and now seeing the result of their efforts disintegrating before their eyes.

But then, SD-VL wasn't making it any easier, themselves! They were a proud people, from a frontier city, who'd created themselves in their own minds as both rebel and vanguard, the loners who kept the lonely watch, for **generations** now -- and they were also a **loud** people, tall and noisy and taking up lots more space than mere physics should allow them to.

There weren't many actual **fights** \-- that was the one thing everyone was clinging to, desperately, as they assured themselves that it wasn't **that** bad, that it was sure to get better soon, and tried to avoid the awful fact that it already **was** this bad **AND** they still had to fit **_Sydney_** in, and when **that** happened the 'Dome itself might just blow off, as if this were an old-fashioned armory, or a fireworks factory, and save the Kaiju the trouble--

So now Crimson Typhoon's pilots sat in their Marshal's office, having waved off attempts to bring in another chair by Cheung and Jin taking the two that were there and Hu sitting himself on their knees, in the middle.

It wasn't **defiance** , exactly, and it wasn't frivolity, either, **really** \-- it was just that they were Crimson Typhoon, and they were **not** going to be set down in a row like schoolboys to be lectured, when **they** had come to the Marshal insisting -- politely! of course politely -- but insistent, none the less, on this meeting.

He didn't say anything about their eccentric seating arrangement, though he did seem a little uneasy sitting still, as if he would rather be pacing himself, and only held himself behind the desk out of courtesy to them. 

In the same taut way he listened to them relate their catalogue of Vladivostok-based grievances: the noisy greetings in the hallways, the loud music, the expectance that people would move out of their way, the complaints that SD-HK wasn't laid out properly or efficiently, the paperwork holdups between their maintenance departments and ours, the failures to fill out proper paperwork before requisitioning things for themselves, and above all else, the problem of their people **freeloading** at the snack bar. 

"Gentleman," said the Marshal wearily, once they had run through it all, and some of the items more than once, to make sure that they registered. "I'm very glad you came to me with this -- you spared me the trouble of requesting a meeting with you, myself."

He took a deep breath, shuffled and looked down at some pieces of paper on his desk that -- Hu peered at them discreetly -- didn't seem to have anything on them at all! before continuing, "I've received delegations from Vladivostok and Los Angeles Shatterdomes over the past week, with their own sets of complaints concerning each other, **and** Hong Kong. We **have** a situation, we need to find a **solution** , and we need to find it **soon."**

The Weis first stiffened in shock and then bristled at the implicit criticism.

**"Who's** complaining? What are they complaining **about?"** Cheung exclaimed. **"They're** the problem-causers!"

"Everything? How **nobody** will give them a plain answer, when they **ask** what they should do -- and then everyone whispers behind their backs, when they do things wrong? How things aren't all **labeled** in English, in Maintenance and elsewhere, and **half** the ones that are, **are wrong?"**

Jin shifted uneasily, making Hu twitch for balance as well as a momentary flash of shame -- yes, they'd gotten behind on reorganizing things, and the constant re-reorganizing of storage to accomodate new arrivals had made it worse -- but everybody **knew** where everything was, by now, right? so it didn't really **matter** , and anyway you could just **_ask_** someone...

Yeah, **that** was a problem that newcomers couldn't be blamed for. The convenience of English as a common language, making it unnecessary to put twenty pages of labels on everything like a computer manufacturer, **only** worked **if** you made use of it. Everyone was so busy -- but there were hundreds of people here who could have chipped in, made the effort to grab a stencil, print out a label and bolt it on a door. 

But still--!

"They're **obnoxious, __**Sir," ** __**Jin said through his teeth, **not** willing to give any more ground than his brothers were.

**"They're _refugees,"_** Marshal Pentecost said in turn, without any heat in his voice, but with a grave disappointment in it.

**_Fuck. He's right._** Hu felt slightly sick, and his mind still resisted the idea of the noisy giants as hapless and pitiable exiles, in need of protection as much as shelter. 

" **And** they are also our ** _comrades,_** who have come to our aid in years past, and given us shelter at their Shatterdome, whenever **we** needed it. Isn't that so, gentlemen?"

Cheung made an exasperated noise, and Hu leaned forward, hands on his own knees.

"Sir, **you** are supreme authority in this place now, and you **are** the head of the Pan Pacific Defense Corps. Why have **you** not stepped in to put an end to all this, **before** it got so bad?"

The Marshal's brows lifted, but his hands stayed folded and still, without any clenching of his knuckles, and Hu was certain he was even a little amused at the challenge.

"I can give **more** speeches on the importance of unity, of cooperation, of putting aside petty differences, of making that extra effort to **help** each other over the ditches -- but I **haven't** noticed them making a **_difference_** , have you?"

**_Oh. Right_**. There had been motivational messages on the loudspeakers ever since the trouble started, hadn't there? Nobody even heard them, any more...

"But there **has** to be something you can **_do,_** Marshal." Cheung drove onward, as relentless as though he were in the Conn-Pod. "It **is** your responsibility, Sir, you **know** it's true -- **no one** else here has the authority you do, to tell **us** what to do. Respectfully, there's **got** to be something in your power, to put an end to this -- situation."

He waited, arms folded (left linked with Hu's right, to keep him steady, as Jin's was with his left) and did not look away. 

Again the older man sighed, and this time he did get up to pace, and looked out the window across the harbor to the hills, and the city outspread on them.

**"Yes.** I can make ten thousand rules, rules for every **conceivable** circumstance in which the different Shatterdomes here might interact -- and then, **when** those rules prove inadequate, I can make **more** rules, and still more when **those** fail, until we have more rules than razor wire has points." 

He made it sound just as unappealing a conclusion as they realized it would be, no sooner had he said it.

"I can **also** set up **_partitions_** , here in your Shatterdome, for each different jurisdiction, and **prohibit** people from straying outside their own zones without permission **or** for set tasks, though it would make **all** our work here **_hellishly_** difficult--"

His expression was so bleak, as he proposed this, that the three of them felt a chill, and understood that he knew **very well** what he was invoking here, **and** that he'd rather cut his own hand off, than do this to them all.

"It would be far from efficient, but it **might** allow us to **tolerate** each other, long enough to get the job done at least. Is **that** the Shatterdome you wish to preside over, Crimson Typhoon?" he asked, in a very serious, very formal way.

**_No._**

**_Obviously, no -- obviously nobody in their right mind would want ** _THAT!_**_**

"Please understand: I cannot **command harmony** , no more than I can command ****the **tides."**

Hu sighed in turn, and asked, ****"Sir, **what** do you want **us** to do?"

**_"Solve_** this." He looked at them with intent brows, his eyes earnest and sad. **"How** you do it -- is up to you, gentlemen. But I ask you to **use** your moral authority here, in **whatever way** you see fit, to reconcile our difficulties."

**_This wasn't supposed to go like this_** , Hu thought as the three of them strode down the hallway, back to their home territory, with similar (but NOT identical) expressions of dismay, pensiveness, anger -- and worry. 

**_He was supposed to have the solution! What's the good of being in charge, if you don't DO anything with it._**

And then, with sudden horror--

**_He thinks we ARE the solution, that WE'RE his weapon to overcome this--_**

**_Ohshit._**

Up on the Terrace, the brothers sat around a table and scowled at it. This had as little effect on the table as it did on their problem.

**_"Solve this."_** Hu said again, not **mimicking** the Marshal, not at all -- just restating their hopeless task. 

**_"However we see fit."_** Jin put his head down on the table, which didn't help any either.

"Hey -- If they want **noise** , we can **give** them noise," Cheung said with a spiky grin, and they all chuckled, thinking of the wonderful roar the drums made, and the jingle-trees, and the gongs. 

"We **could** , we **totally** could," and for a little bit they indulged the fantasy of rolling down the halls with the big wheeled kettledrums and all the more portable percussion, just to show the enemy what kind of fire they were playing with, making noise under THIS roof--

But that was the **problem** , right there -- they **weren't** the enemy, they **shouldn't** be, the only enemy **these** days was the Kaiju (well, them and the idiots on the Atlantic who didn't believe in Kaiju, really, so long as they weren't turning up on **their** doorstep -- but they weren't around to be smacked for their stupidity, so it didn't matter) and whatever solution they came up with couldn't include escalation, couldn't include eviction, it HAD to somehow be a solution of **reconciling** them all to living under one roof-- 

"This is **hopeless,"** said Jin, his head muffled in his arms again.

"You think **so?"** Hu frowned, beginning to see a possible way to a solution.

"I **don't** think 'pretty please will you all stop being a bunch of assholes?' is gonna **do** it," Cheung retorted, crossing his arms and tilting his chair back.

"You're gonna fall over backwards," Jin warned him, without looking up.

"No, 'cause I'm **watching** you so you can't push me--" At which point Hu tipped his chair over under the table with his foot, and Jin caught him without lifting his head, and settled him back in safely. 

"What is **wrong** with you?" But his brother only caught his hand, and pulled him close.

"Not us. **We're _fine._** It's the Shatterdome. It's **_out of alignment."_**

Cheung frowned, and Jin lifted his head, looking for the first time thoughtful instead of despairing. 

Lowering his voice, Hu said, "This is too big for **us** to solve," waiting for their understanding. "We **need** to go to the Moon," he added, and at that all the irritation and levity together fled from their faces, and his brothers nodded, accepting his insight.

So the Weis told their crew that they wanted to check out some of the neural alignments of Crimson Typhoon, and were gotten ready and harnessed themselves up and set out from the 'Dome on the safely approved route towards the harbor mouth, and once they had found a steady spot, free of sandbars and debris, they planted their feet and ran through all the checks they wanted to, and noted their systems' responses, and then they were done with that task, but not the one they had come out here to accomplish.

They aligned themselves so that with a **part** of each of their consciousness, they could stay attuned to the Jaeger's sensors, and another part observant of LOCCENT's signals, but they'd finished their system-check quickly and no one would excpect them back for a good hour or so, so they had plenty of time to work interrupted, in what they were about to do.

And then, **deliberately** , they deepened the Drift, chasing the Jade Rabbit across the River of Heaven, following it from safe foothold to safe foothold, finding the stable stars, the comets that would hold underfoot in the current and not burn out like meteors, all the way to the solid banks of the Moon where his workbench stands forever.

While in the world outside their superficial consciousness holds them steady, still perfectly synchronized, standing on the border of sea and sky where all may see them, keeping watchful guard over the waves though it should be many more days -- at least by the standards of **now** , and not even of one year ago -- before another Beast comes.

Here, the Moon is all clear brightest jade, pale as the earliest leaf that begins to uncurl after winter, as well, and so is the Lady who stands guard, having stolen immortality from one tyrant, her fallen lover whose pride went to his head after he saved the world from death-by-flame, and sought to make himself the deathless ruler of the earth below, to rival the Jade Emperor in the heavens--

She keeps watch, forever, making sure that none may steal the Elixir of Immortality, the Philosphers' Stone that the changeless Rabbit compounds every night, until there is enough for all to share equally below-- 

In the distance, on the third point of the imagined triangle between them, the impatient boy who wanted Immortality himself, but refused to study the spells and do the meditations required to achieve it, and so was exiled to this place until he completes his task of cutting down just one tree--

The tree, here in the Drift, is also of purest jade, everything here as though carved out of one of those exquisite oversize pebbles that one sees in museums, or sometimes in the very expensive shop windows downtown; it is only a slender crooked thing, it should be short work to cut it down -- but the Apprentice Wizard keeps getting distracted by the smell of its blossoms and as soon as he stops cutting, it grows back the branch that was lopped off! 

They know as it is happening that **none** of this is real, that the dream is just **that** , that they aren't **really** communicating with legendary beings from the old stories, any more than they're really on the Earth's satellite flying through space. They aren't ignorant farm kids, **or** ignorant townies who see ghosts under every blowing newspaper either. 

This is no different than the "spells" people work with straws and coins or number games, or playing cards in the Western style, to tell themselves either what they want to hear, or what they don't want to hear but know they need to know any way -- it's a divination tool, which means it's a way to find hidden streams, by digging deep.

They know that this is considered **dangerous** , and utter folly, by most people who know anything about the Drift, and they're probably right. But they were doing something like this long before the Pons was invented, and why should they stop now that they have the right tools for the job? They've made this call so long, it's an easy one -- though this **isn't** a tool to be abused, or used lightly. 

But then, they're **rarely** at a loss for what to do, either.

They ask the questions, together, because they all have the same ones, and they will all hear the same answer:

**_What should we do?_**  
 ** _How should we do it?_**  
 ** _How do we not make things worse?_**

Here **they** are the only splash of color in the Jade Realm, bright crimson cloth and warm skin against the ice-green stillness of Eternity. But here they wear not their ordinary uniform fatigues, nor even the glossy scarlet of their armor, but the glorious siu kow of the generals of the mo plays, layer upon layer of silks cut in curving panels and embroidered with gold thread, that they'd feel like **fools** wearing in public, **anywhere** but here.

It **isn't** a memory, except for being a **memory** of a memory, when they used to pretend that they were the heroes of old they'd watched on TV, fighting demons and disrespectful gods, as children always have. (But in the Drift-dream, the emblems they wear are none of the old epic characters', nor even Crimson's heraldic mask, but instead the warlike form of the Phoenix, the luan-bird, guardian of the borders between death and life, hatched from a Phoenix egg but grown fierce from some necessity.)

Here, it was obvious; the problem was that everything was disordered and broken, thrown together with no particular order -- **terrible** feng shui, if you believed that sort of thing! -- and nobody had been made properly welcome, nobody had been given a place or a proper home, just let to move in like mice or swallows, finding their own places as they could.

And most of them **had** , without trouble, because they weren't **too much** strangers, not even the Americans -- they were cousins near enough these days, and the ones who weren't had been adopted in long ago by the Vaulted Houses -- here one could **admit** it, that the bases were **more** than just forts and store-rooms, that they were something that would have been blasphemous in the old days of the emperors and no less **truly** such, than the ones the Cultists worshipped in down at the old attack site -- 

**_Before WE were pilots! NOT one we missed--_**

But here was **not** the place for boasting, and this was not the **time** for it. 

The problem was, the newest comers had been shoved in with everyone else, and they weren't ready for it, and no one had **taken** the time, in all this miserable confusion, to both make them welcome **and** explain to them what was what, and how things worked here.

**_Make them welcome,_** says the Lady in a voice of bells of ice, or frozen light, and plainly that is the right thing to do, to bring the Shatterdome into alignment again. 

**_But HOW?_**

**_Who are you?_** the Rabbit asks them, in a voice that is thistledown made of ice

Since the obvious answer is obviously the wrong one, they wait again. **Not** the three of them individually, or even **as** a family.

Crimson Typhoon, then? The Jaeger was as much them as they were it -- apart from him, they were just another bunch of martial artists doing exhibition matches for tourists, if with a better gimmick than most, and that only from sheer **luck** \-- but without **them** , it was an empty shell, a suit of armor no more alive than any in a museum--

But who **was** Crimson Typhoon? More than **metal** , **more** than engine's heat, more than **themselves** \--

And then the Oracle took control, speaking to and through and into them:

**_I am the Guardian!_**  
 ** _I, the burning Beast_**  
 ** _from the Heart of the World,_**  
 ** _Fire that lies under all mountains,_**  
 ** _forged upon your hearts,_**  
 ** _the Red Words about your door,_**  
 ** _the Cry in the Night_**  
 ** _that turns back the Devourer,_**  
 ** _Father who holds the World,_**  
 ** _Mother who holds the Children,_**  
 ** _the Lion who is Two and now Three--_**

They sigh, because the tension is gone, the answer is come to them, and it was the one they were fumbling towards all along, but hadn't quite seen how it made **sense**.

**_We NEED to perform the ceremony._**  
 ** _But it MUST be done properly--_**  
 ** _With full courtesy and respect!_**

It would be wrong, **even** more wrong than they'd instinctively **felt** , to just take out the drums and the bells and go to war with them -- that would be the **opposite** of respect, and not simply to their guests, it would be to disrespect the whole **concept** of welcoming in the New Year.

As their answers were the same, so too their nagging doubt.

**_Yes. But it's the wrong TIME for it._**

This was a bigger problem. Their sense that the only right thing for this problem **WAS** to invoke the Red Lion, to call him up with music and movement here, and now, only grew greater -- it **WAS** the right thing, to let their Jaeger's spirit loose again in the streets of their home, to bring joy to everyone--

Only **this** time the streets would would be narrower and more crowded, the streets of a village not the greatest port that remained, and the crowds themselves smaller, and it was still months too soon for it--

This was too big for any one of them, and that was why they'd followed Jade Rabbit to the silent Moon, seeking clarity.

And so they wait, until the Apprentice says, in a dreamy tone that is like the scent of flower petals, caught by a sculptor's hand--

**_What's Time? Nothing but movement..._**

And out of the cold pale Moon under the jet black night hung with ten thousand crystal stars, the Oracle asks of them and answers, together:

**_When is it the right hour to light the Lanterns?_**  
 ** _What is the proper time to ring the Bells?_**  
 ** _How long should one wait, to defy the Cold One?_**

**_When it is DARK, is the right hour to light them!_**  
 ** _When Danger is NEAR, you must sound the alarm!_**  
 ** _BEFORE it is too late, drive back the Beast of Winter!_**

**_Yes._**  
 ** _Yes._**  
 ** _Oh yeah--_**

And with deep, formal bows to the three Spirits of the Moon, they retreated into the shallows of the Drift, step by step back across the stepping-stones of the starry River, sliding back into themselves, into the outside world, where waves lashed their ankles and the wind snapped in their face--

The light of the late morning turned everything bright and sharp as a tourist postcard, and none of them said anything, as they strode back along the safe route towards home, passing ships whose crews waved up to them cheerfully and Marine Department buildings flying the white flower ensign. (Sometimes the subconscious is cryptic in its symbolism, and sometimes -- nah, it really isnt!)

Once they'd gotten Crimson Typhoon settled back in and themselves changed and rustled up some late breakfast, Jin sent a short, but extremely loaded, text:

**TENDO -- HOW MUCH TIME FOR GUO NIAN? WE HAVE THE DRUMS OUT. YOUR COURT, DUDE!**

And then they waited for the explosions, while they got ready for their part in it!

**"AaaahAAAHHHHHHAhahahah** no, guys, **oh** no **oh** no, you **didn't** , you're **not** \--" and LOCCENT's chief looked up in horror from his tablet as if there were some relief from the awful news he'd just gotten to be found in the ceiling conduits, before screaming again.

Everyone stared, and waited.

"Gimme a minute," Tendo Choi said, as if he hadn't just been shouting out loud in extreme dismay across the fishbowl, though still looking as if he'd just been mildly concussed. Darting over to his console he rattled out some message, before spinning around and announcing, "Okay. **_Okay._** Um, **everybody, listen up** \-- I've just been told we're holding Guo Nian -- New Year's -- like, **_tonight."_**

The silence became even louder.

"Yeah. I'm not **sure** what's goin' on -- I have an idea, but I-- well, what I **know** is, I have to **get something together** in, uh, as fast as we can get it **together**! If it's **eleven** now, we can try to be ready by **four** , I don't know if **that's** even long enough but--"

"How," someone began, and stopped.

**"EXCELLENT QUESTION!"** Choi shouted manically. **"I HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA! I'VE NEVER DONE ANYTHING LIKE THIS! ALL I EVER DID WAS THROW FIREWORKS AROUND THE PARADE AS A KID!"** He closed his eyes and let his head fall back, grinning a fool's grin of desperate humor.

"But, sir," Jamie Tan said, deadpan, " **you** run LOCCENT--?"

" **Right,"** and that jab reset something. "Good point. So let's look at this as an **ops** problem. What **are** the critical elements? The parade is on **their** end--"

**"Whose** end?" someone else asked.

"Crimson Typhoon. This is **their** idea, you can blame **them** \-- **or** thank them, **if** we manage to pull it out of the fire. Anyway, we need to let **everyone** know what's going on, I'll eblast the other division heads so they can pass it on. Oh wait! we gotta let people know what they need to **expect** , and how to **behave** \-- I gotta put together an information packet, first--"

"No," Jamie said, pulling up a whiteboard app on one of the monitors, " **somebody** needs to put together a packet but **FIRST** we need to **sort out** what we need -- **all** of it." She put down 

**1\. Notifications,**

"What next? People need to be informed, but of **what?"**

**"Prepare.** We need to decorate -- each division, each station here, we should do something. **Hospitality**! We need to have those little tables, with the offerings--"

" **Where** are we gonna get that much **cabbage** , at short notice?"

"Ohgod no," Choi was shaking his head, and when he caught Jamie's eyes her expression and headshake were identical. "Do **you** want to be the one to tell Building Maintenance we're gonna shred a couple hundred leaves up, throw it around the hallways and have people **walk on it** for a couple hours before they clean it up?"

Surprisingly, there were **no** volunteers.

**"That's** not an indoor doable thing. But we **can** do the oranges -- oh yeah, let me scramble a chopper down to Yau Ma Tei--"

"Wait--" But he was already on to something else, gesturing distractedly.

"We need to **DO** something **here** , too, but I have to coordinate **everything** , and I don't know, I mean, LOCCENT, how do we, what, like **printouts** of scans that we got exactly right? Like what, even--"

Jamie grabbed his arm before he started hyperventilating again.

"Mr. Choi! **Stop** it. You're geiszlering again! I can **take care** of this. Just **calm** down, it won't be a problem. **Go** , find Miss Mori and you two can take care of the 'everything else,' " and she pulled out the long flat case from under her desk, the modern style one that had been reinforced by Jaeger Tech to withstand anything short of a direct hit by a Kaiju. 

Inside, it still had the old worn khaki pouch that smelled of another century, and inside that a velvet wrap of uncertain age -- and what was in that was in part, scarred but polished ebony, and silver. 

"There's a tune for **every** occasion," she said, while her colleagues new and old looked on and oohed over them. One fellow in particular, a tall sandy-haired young American with a little beard, had a particularly wistful expression.

**"Ian,"** she said, and he looked at her without any suspicion whatsoever. " **You** once mentioned you know 'Ghillie Callum.' **Is** that true?" as his jaw dropped.

"I--I--I don't have a **kilt** ," he said after a moment.

"Nor do I," she said, putting the pieces together with the assurance of one who could assemble her instrument in the dark. "But one pipes in one's **uniform** , whatever it is -- so you can **dance** just as well in it."

"I haven't got any **swords** ," he protested desperately.

"Talk to Mechanical," she answered, remorselessly. "Or send out a blast and see if anyone's got stage foils in their locker."

"Okay," he said, after a moment, and scrubbed his hand through his hair. "I, uh, guess I better **practice** , then." 

"Yes, we should," Jamie Tan said, feeling triumphant. "Okay, everybody, what song is easiest? We need something that **everyone** can sing along to. It won't be hard to make a little app for that," **_We're LOCCENT, we improvise, we find the WAY AROUND!_**

The Marshal looked at the blinking message on his phone that read:

**SIR, WE'RE CELEBRATING GUO NIAN IN T-5 HRS. HEAVEN HELP US ALL! --TC**

and looked very, very pensive. It was not a solution **he** would have come up with, and he could only think of how so much additional stress thrown into their mix could be most **_inflammable_** , rather than producing any sort of **neutralizing** effect -- but he had **asked** , and they had **answered** , and now all he could in either justice or honour do was to **wait**.

**_Well, no -- there ARE things that I ought to do as well,_** and he frowned, and began to rack both his memory and his bookshelf for ideas.

Mako sat on her bunk frowning at her list, and then frowned up at her friend and partner-in-Jaeger-restoration.

"Tendo! **Stop _geiszlering!_** We can **do** this."

He glared at her. 

"You're the **second** person who's said that to me, in the last ten minutes. That's just **cruel.** It really is."

"Then you should **stop**. And **you're** not the one being **insulted** , anyway." She sighed. "It's **simple**. Only **two parts** to it, once you break it down -- **tell** people what to do, and **feed** them. So, **you** tell people what they need to do to get ready, and **I'll** see about getting them fed."

"All you **really** eat at the New Year's Parade is cookies and buns, it's like **Halloween** that way. But healthier!" he reminisced, a glib careful reminiscence that didn't go through the cooled crust to any live molten core below. 

"Well, that's **easy**. Don't we need oranges?" thinking of the festivities she'd attended in Sydney's Chinatown, years ago.

"Ack, **_I forgot!_** I was gonna send a chopper to the wholesale market, have 'em buy all the oranges. Anything else we need?"

Mako made a note on her list -- **_Oranges, All Of Them_** \-- and shrugged.

"Let me **check** with the heads of Craft Services next. We can always dispatch a **second** helicopter **if** we need to."

The initial response screaming in the Mess Hall was louder than LOCCENT's had been.

**"YOU CAN'T MASS-PRODUCE MOONCAKES! WHAT WERE THEY _THINKING?!"_**

**"THIS IS _WEEKS_ WORTH OF WORK! THEY WANT IT IN FOUR _HOURS?!"_**

**"AAAAAHGHHH! WHY? _WHY?_ I'M GOING TO BEAT MY NEPHEWS SENSELESS WITH A LADLE!"**

The seniormost -- in time on the job, in cooking experience, and in age, so for all that, in authority too -- of the co-chiefs of Craft Services was Wei Linyao, who was called Auntie not just by the three Jaeger Pilots, but by pretty much everyone who'd been at SD-HK for any significant length of time. 

She was **not** amused, to put it mildly, to get a text from certain people who apparently thought that cooking was like stamping out identical metal parts, asking if they could bake enough mooncakes to, yeah, yeah, feed an **army** \-- by dinnertime. 

She was even **less** amused when her nephews blithely confirmed that yup, Shatterdome Hong Kong was holding Guo Nian in a few hours, no, this **wasn't** a joke, that wasn't a **problem** , was it? They'd be happy to come down and help but they had to get the costume in order, sorry!

Not that they would have been **much** help, because tasting things **doesn't _count,_** but still--

"Wait, isn't **that** the source of the problem?"

"Stop **joking!** It **isn't** funny!"

"No, you're right, it's **HOPELESS!"**

But one who disagreed was Harry Wong, whose family had **not** been happy when he left MIT to join the PPDC not as a member of Jaeger Tech, but to work in its kitchens, after hearing something about the complicated logistics of wrangling the ingredients and cooking for an all-new army of an all-new type of warrior -- **_We didn't save for years to send you to MIT so you could work in a restaurant, you could have stayed HOME for that!_** was something he'd heard far too often, until his parents had called home and their complaints had fallen not on deaf, but **very** unsympathetic ears, who'd told their nephew and niece just exactly how critical the Jaeger program was and how **ANY** work in it was worthy of the highest regard -- and **held** in it, there, not just lip service paid to it!

The family back home had said a **lot** of things, apparently, some of which didn't mean much to him, but obviously did to his parents and **their** generation of aunties and uncles and cousins, and so **he** wasn't the only one in his generation of cousins to sign up after all (and the family blessing that the younger cousins retroactively extended to him, though not without some parental sighing!) But **he** was the one with the best recipes, as well as the one who solved food problems WITH SCIENCE! and had the apron to prove it.

Most of New Year's in Hong Kong was **so** much better than Boston -- though had he gone back home now, he might have found it quaintly charming, than just the embarrassing amateur comparisons he couldn't help making on leave, in the early years of the War -- and he was never, **ever** going to miss the wind off the harbor roaring up Tremont Street to gnaw your bones, but there was one little bakery that had made the best Guo Nian cookies, almond-filled ones in the shape of a pair of carp... 

"We just need to **simplify**. These are **wartime** mooncakes -- fancy decorations and fillings aren't appropriate."

"But they still need to **taste** good!"

"Sure, but we can **do** that, we just need to pick **one** filling and **one** shape. We can do this thing, we really **can** \-- just let me run the numbers. How many will we need?"

It was a math problem, first, a geometry problem second, and an engineering problem, third -- quantities, volumes, and mass-production.

"There's **no way** we can do all this, **and** make anything else for supper."

"That's okay, everyone can **stuff themselves** on cookies tonight," Auntie said with grim satisfaction. "And before **anybody** asks, we're **NOT** trying to do buns or dumplings or **_ANYTHING ELSE,_** I know how **ambitious** you kids are, I know you **think** you can do **everything** but **I** say **_NO!"_**

"So how are we gonna stamp out the designs, Harry? There isn't enough time -- are we just going to do plain squares? That seems **wrong**..."

"No, I got an idea," pulling up a reference on his tablet, "I think the answer will be...yes! Escher fish! We can have Mechanical make us a die for them!"

"Use **JaegerTech** to make a giant cookie cutter?"

"Why not!?"

**_"Awesome!"_**

Linyao shook her head at their youthful enthusiasm as she pulled canisters of flour and oil and sugar from the stockroom, but there was a gleam in her own eye as she thought of the absolute **_coup_** this would be, to pull off with such the impossible deadline!

"What's wrong, Ma'am?"

"Nothing yet, Kenji, but you need to get a Kestrel airborne **immediately** \-- we've got a mission to run downtown. --Anyone got the phone number for the fruit market? We need to have them move the trucks far enough for us to put down there. Oh, and what's the **best** place to get 50 kilogrammes of almond flour?"

"Uh--"

"You said **fifty** ? I doubt **any** one shop will **have** that much..."

"Right -- I guess we need a squad with us. Call Security, please, and tell 'em to bring their duffel bags!"

"Can we make you a **what?** Uh -- yeah, I'm downloading that file right now, it -- looks doable, sure. When d'you need it **for?"**

There was silence at the Hull Maintenance central workstation -- a silence which grew as everyone took notice of the non-conversation, and the strange graphic now coming up on the CAD system monitor.

"You're kidding. **No** , I haven't had time to check my email, we're busy fabricating a Jaeger out of pieces of other Jaegers, in case you hadn't **noticed?** Yeah, fine, sorry -- they're ** _WHAT?"_**

Everyone had given up trying not to listen in.

"I don't believe it. **_Yes._** You can have an 8-meter pastry press, custom die, in an hour. But where are you going to **bake** all of them? No way your ovens are gonna be able to handle that in this time allocation! So, why don't you use the waterproof coater drying oven, over here? We can crank the temperature all the way down so they don't burn. You just need to get the dough down here -- **yes** , we'll sterilize it, don't worry!"

Once again there was silence.

"Okay, people! We're making cookies today! Jorge, clear the CAD template and start loading this one! Noor, find that set of sheets we put aside as questionable the other day, they might not be good enough for holding off Kaiju but they can certainly stand up to cookie dough! Jesse, Sam, get the pressure washers and start scrubbing! We really **do** need to have that bed clean enough to eat off of!"

And Hull Maintenance was silent no longer--

Striker Eureka's junior co-pilot -- though he didn't **think** of himself as such -- was hanging out in the back of their designated bay, rocking out on his computer and wondering how much **more** bloody time it was going to take to get them fixed up and homeward bound, after this last chase had brought them all the way here.

**_Weren't we supposed to be done already?_** he thought peevishly, getting bored of the FPS he was playing -- the Shatterdomes might have awesome network capacity and really good graphics systems, but all these shoot-em-ups were starting to look alike, and honestly they were pretty boring, once you realized that the missions were only different on the surface.

And the people he was running these with were so stupid! **None** of them did what they were told, they couldn't tell left from right to save their worthless lives, and nobody paid **any** attention to him, whether he played under his own name or a handle -- oh sure, they **fanboyed** all over him, but they didn't **LISTEN** and either got him **or** themselves killed, doing their own thing!

It didn't really occur to Chuck Hansen that there was anything the least bit funny about him playing wargames after hunting Kaiju, any more than it occurred to him to ask what they were going to be **doing** , once the funding ran out...

He was about to call home and ask LOCCENT-SY to find Max and put him on the phone, but a racket outside that was more than the racket of people working on machines, or machines working on machines, or people unpacking and sorting supplies in preparation for the next moving-in when SD-SY finished its shutdown, broke through the sounds of digital explosions and a metal soundtrack.

**"What's** goin' **_on?"_** he shouted, and when nobody answered, got up to look.

What he saw, didn't **help** any. People were running around in all directions, not just walking with more or less hurry, but scrambling like mad in directions that didn't **compute** \-- carrying **things** that didn't compute, either, like strings of work lights, and rolls of wrapping paper, and ladders -- and there thundered a herd of Security goons, without guns or helmets but all carrying multiple duffle-bags, heading for the helipad--?

"Oi! Jun! What's the **rush?"** He grabbed the senior mechanic by the arm as he came flying past with a paintcan and brush. The older man sighed.

"New Year's, Ranger. We're getting ready to celebrate it this evening. **Didn't** you get LOCCENT's message?"

"Huh?" **This** made no sense, wasn't that a month away, if you meant normal New Year's, and a couple, if you meant Chinese New Year's? "Why?"

"It's in your **email** , Mr. Hansen. Everything's **explained** there." That was not entirely the case, but the nuanced politics of the event which had not been disclosed by either the Weis, or the Marshal, had somehow managed to make themselves discerned to LOCCENT, and thus were discernable in the spare but effective prose of the information packet that Ms. Mori and Mr. Choi had sent out to everyone on base.

"Ahh," Chuck shook his head in disgust. ** _Like I have time for that..._** He went off looking for the old man, who everybody seemed to have seen, recently, but nobody knew where he was **now**.

**_Probably off havin' another little chat with Pentecost,_** he thought bitterly, but when he found Hercules Hansen it was in his own assigned cabin here, where he was just finishing shaving and putting on borrowed clean blues from Stores.

**"What** are you doing? You look like a **_cadet,"_** he asked him, bewildered at how his father had apparently caught whatever it was that was going around.

"Oh -- didn't you get the **memo?** We're holdin' the New Years' Festival early, in case there's an Incursion when it comes around -- since we've got a good three, four weeks now we're gonna do it **tonight** instead."

"That doesn't make **_any sense_**. Why **now?** Why not wait till an Interval **closer** to the right date?"

The old man shrugged, tugging his sweater down. 

"Not **my** call. We just need to get **ready** \-- so why don't you get changed into somethin' decent? I got to run downtown 'n get some more lanterns, you wanna come along?"

Chuck only looked at him, pityingly. 

**"I've** got better things to do than play **Pentecost's** little **_morale boosting_** games. Have fun **shopping** , Dad."

Newt Geiszler was humming to himself, tapping the beat on the side of his desk while he waited for the DNA profile analysis to finish running its program, and it wasn't even consciously that he'd picked a tune that he knew Hermann hated, it just happened that way any more.

It **hadn't** been so bad when Kaiju Science had been huge and spread out across multiple campuses, multiple locations -- but now they were **trapped** in the same building, and there was no getting **away** from the guy's judgy-ness and overall -- well, **_Hermann-ness!_**

All those pained little sighs and eyerolls added up, and people thought he was oblivious to social nuance, but no, he just put up with them, because that's what you **had** to do, to survive in academia, in science, you had to put up with inadequate lab partners and idiots making budget decisions who didn't understand what you were accomplishing -- so that's what he **did**!

And nobody appreciated it, either--

"Where's your **table!?"** The shout from the doorway broke his concentration and he looked up with a jump. That guy from LOCCENT, the one with the bow tie, the guy who always glared at him like he'd insulted his mother or something, was leaning around the frame with a bag of-- was that **oranges,** in his hand? It was. Why was the head tech dude ** _running in the halls_** with bags of oranges?

This place was so freakin' weird! 

**"Geiszler! _Where's your table?!"_** The intruder stared around in frustration. **"Where's** Dr. Gottlieb?"

"Uh--" Newt looked around, not having noticed the stuffy Brit's departure at all. "I don't know -- not **my** day to watch him, heh!" he chuckled.

Bow-tie guy **didn't**. 

**_Honestly, since WHEN were bow-ties cool? So pathetic, when people didn't realize what dorks they came across as..._**

"Did you **read** your email? The one I sent you two, three hours ago?"

**_"I did,"_** Hermann called from outside the lab, and came into view carrying a folding tray table under one arm. He was also wearing a red wooly sweater, and Newt couldn't help but stare. He didn't know the man owned anything that -- well, "garish" was one word, but **_eye-catching_** was the other. It would have made anyone stand out like a stop sign, but on the tall mathematician it was like painting the Statue of Liberty neon orange.

"Oh **good,"** the tech said with a huge sigh of relief, which didn't seem to be totally exaggerated. "Here," and took out two of the little oranges from his bag, putting them on the tray table that Hermann had set up in front of their entryway. "See you later, Doctor," and he took off again at a flat run, dodging through a more than usually frantic crowd of cadets and other techs, all dashing around as well. 

What on earth was going on? But when he asked this out loud, Hermann only sighed and rolled his eyes again.

**"Read** your data packet, Dr. Geiszler. You're going to **embarrass** us _again_ , aren't you? **Please** tell me you're **not** going to embarrass us again? --Oh, why do I even entertain such hopes?! You've got to find something **_worthy_** to present when they come round, and it should ideally be **red** , or in a red wrapper -- now, where's that copy of _The Principia_ I had? What shelf was it -- the cover was mostly red, if I remember correctly--"

Ignoring this typical Hermann rudeness (and gibbering!) Newt sighed right back and pulled up his email interface. Maybe **something** would make sense of all of this...

**Author's Note:**

> "Guo Nian," the Lunar New Year's greeting, is partly a pun, and partly a reference to the ancient personification of Winter as a terrible mythical beast -- Nian, which also means "Year" -- who would break the chains in which the gods had bound it and roam the land one night in late winter, devouring whoever it caught outside, especially children. Cold and famine roam the land, in the storm's blast.
> 
> People first hid from it in caves or in closed darkened houses, hoping to be spared -- but then, the tales tell in different ways how it was arrived at, but all agree on the solution -- we discovered that the Beast could be driven off with bright colors, especially red and gold (the colors of life and of the gods) and with loud noises, as if it were a tiger, and so the customs of decorating doorways with red and gold poems in praise of spring and life and health, and of fireworks and lion dances, were born.
> 
> Here is a short animation of the legend, in which the Nian looks very much like a Kaiju,  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uJbp8d_d9c
> 
> and here is a retelling by Leta Bushyhead of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, which fills in some of the background very beautifully:  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YnQ7FW9Glg
> 
> Above anything else, Crimson Typhoon looks to me like a Shi figure, a guardian lion statue brought to life (and the size of a mountain) which is where this story came from. The lions always come in pairs, by the way, because they're yang AND yin -- yes they both have manes, but that's because they're magical creatures (or, alternately, so that you know they're both lions and not a lion and a tiger, depending how you look at it.)
> 
> Ungyo is responsible for the Weis' communal snackbar headcanon, & has graciously shared it with us! I hope to do the Guardian of SD-HK justice , in this story.


End file.
